


Sharp-Tooth, Flat-Tooth

by downjune



Series: Sharp tooth, Flat tooth [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Body Horror, M/M, Monsters, Pittsburgh Penguins, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-19 18:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11319180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: “Does it hurt?” Conor asked quietly. And, shit, now he had to look. Scott forced his gaze down and saw them—spurs of bone splitting his knuckles. It wasn’t just swelling from the few punches he’d thrown. That was bone. This was happening.





	Sharp-Tooth, Flat-Tooth

**Author's Note:**

> [Look at this scrappy (possibly vegetarian) fire demon! ](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/155130174752/trevordales-122716-wilson-after-his-scrap-for) Here's Rusty rewarding him with the [battling helmet](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/160908431110/intermissionpenguins-051517-this-guy-was-a) for his guts after Game 2 against Ottawa. 
> 
> Also, combined [two of my](http://theladyscribe.dreamwidth.org/408673.html?thread=1902945#cmt1902945) [own prompts](http://theladyscribe.dreamwidth.org/408673.html?thread=1904481#cmt1904481) for this, like a real winner.

Scott hissed at the sting from the bag of frozen corn across his knuckles, and Shearsy winced too. Scott would take shot-blocking bruises and hard hits into the boards over split knuckles any day. He needed to wash out the cuts and cover them if he didn’t want an infection. They’d take weeks to heal.

But Shearsy hadn’t let go of his hand yet. He was staring at Scott’s knuckles like—like something was wrong with them. Scott didn’t want to look. He couldn't afford to be hurt, and he didn’t think he’d hit anyone that hard.

“Does it hurt?” Conor asked quietly. And, shit, now he had to look. Scott forced his gaze down and saw them—spurs of bone splitting his skin. It wasn’t just swelling from the few punches he’d thrown. That was bone. This was happening. 

“Yeah, it hurts,” he answered belatedly.

“It’s good, though, right?” Conor looked up at him. “This will protect you. Do some damage, too.”

Scott nodded, but he was having trouble swallowing. 

Shearsy’s teeth had come in. His knees had changed, built for springing and speed. Scott’s hands weren’t for speed. They weren’t for that scoring touch. 

Shearsy reached for Scott’s forehead, and he flinched back. “What—”

“Sorry, it’s just—they’re here, too.” Conor looked at him, eyes wide, and Scott slapped a hand to his head, trapping Shearsy’s fingers there against another nub of bone. A horn. Horns.

“Do they hurt, too?”

Scott shook his head. The skin wasn’t broken around them, just tough and leathery. “Mom always said I had a hard head.”

Shearsy’s grin was sharper than usual. “They’re sick.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, come on, look.” Conor pulled him up from the couch and into the bathroom, flipping on the light. Scott blinked in the sudden glare and felt his mouth drop open. He was pale as ever, white as a ghost—or a redhead—and there were his horns. Two points halfway up his forehead, above his eyebrows. 

“Think I’ll have to grind ‘em down?” Colesy and Horny did every other day. It was loud.

Conor tipped his chin up and gave him a considering look. “Not yet. We’ll see after Game 3, though, I guess. You were a fucking beast tonight, Willy.” He gave Scott that toothy grin again.

“Yeah,” he huffed. It’d felt perfect, running down Phaneuf and Hoffman and all the others taking aim on his guys, on _his_ team. Honestly, he couldn’t even remember all of it. He’d blinked and come back to himself when Rusty had given him the battling helmet tonight. For fighting back, standing up. His team knew what he did. What he was for. Scott had left his Pens cap on, so no one would have seen the horns then, if they’d already come in.

Rusty had been squinting with a headache, voice soft and hurt-sounding as he handed over the helmet, and Scott had sworn he’d do whatever it took to keep him safe. To keep them all safe. They didn’t have many guys left to lose. 

He wished his horns had come in sooner.

Conor ran the sink, and Scott jolted his attention away from his reflection. Hesitantly, he stuck his right hand under the flow of water, and sucked in a sharp breath at the burn of it over his reddened, torn skin. Conor rubbed the bar of soap in his hands until it was good and sudsy, then took Scott’s hand again, flushing his knuckles with soap and water. 

Scott swallowed a whine and bit the inside of his lip. 

“I think your hair is redder, too,” Conor said, not looking up from Scott’s hands.

Scott only spared his reflection a quick glance this time. Yup. It was even fierier than usual. And those were flecks of red-gold in his eyes mixed in with the green. “Just what I needed,” he grumbled.

“It’s what we all need,” Conor told him quietly. “It’s the only way we’re going to make it through this.” He reached for Scott’s left hand. “But I get why it’s freaky—you watched it happen to everybody else last year and not you.”

Scott nodded. Laid up with a broken ankle, he had watched the rest of his team change with envy burning in his belly. Shearsy and Rusty sprouting teeth and fur, extra power in their quads and springs in their knees, Kuhni growing plates of armor across his chest and shoulders. Even Muzz had patches of leather and scales covering his knees and fists and elbows. All his brothers from down in Wilkes, made indestructible. 

Scott had ended the playoffs like Flower—covered in pale, fragile, human skin. It was awful. 

But this…

“I was league scoring leader,” he murmured. “Before I got called up. You and me. We led the whole AHL.” 

Conor had shut off the sink and held both Scott’s hands now. He thumbed over the crest of bone protruding from Scott’s first knuckle. 

“What changed?” Scott asked. “Why couldn’t I keep up with you?”

The answer was obvious. Conor had developed the skill he needed alongside Crosby, all through the end of last season and the run to the Cup. Scott hadn’t caught up. He might never catch up. He was a hard head and knuckles meant for breaking things. Not speed and cunning, not anymore. The NHL was a different beast, and this was what it made of him. 

"I'm not keeping up right now, either," Conor said, eyes downcast. "Can't buy a goal."

He pressed Scott’s fingers straight and lifted his ugly hands to his face. His beard was shaggy and thick—both fur and human hair—and Scott scratched his fingers gently through it. They were longer than they’d been, the joints knobbier beneath his skin. His fingernails tougher. When Conor squirmed with pleasure, like a dog scratched under his chin, Scott tried to quit thinking so much about himself for a minute.

Conor pushed him back against the counter, like he was ready to climb right up onto it. They hadn’t done this since the minors, rushed in sleeper-bus bunks, or slowed down in shitty hotel rooms in shitty rust belt towns. Assured of the future, knowing deep down that they were above this. Meant for something better. It felt like arrogance right now.

Conor made an animal sound in his chest and darted forward with sharp teeth. Scott grunted at the painful kiss and the biting taste of iron on his lip, and flinched back when Conor sucked hard at the cut he’d made.

“Sorry—sorry,” Conor said breathlessly, his face red. He looked at Scott hungrily. 

It wasn’t just bone and fur and scales—it was heart and appetite that turned monstrous. Scott had seen it before this. Horny and Hags scrambling together, digging gouges down each other’s backs. Flower pinning Muzz, his familiar grin just that side of wrong. The bite marks all down Geno’s neck, and Sid’s sharp teeth.

That fire heated Scott’s core. It burned all the way to his hair and eyes. But. His hands hurt. His head ached, along with any number of other bruises that his stronger bones could do nothing to heal. He was becoming a monster, and the becoming _hurt_. 

Conor touched him more carefully, pressing around his new horns. He tipped Scott’s mouth open and pushed in with his thumb.

“No new teeth,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Scott asked awkwardly.

“Nothing.” Conor shrugged and let his hand drop. “Who cares?” Still, he grinned, showing off his fuller mouth. “Might call you flat-tooth, though. You're hungry for kale and arugula instead of flesh.”

Scott barked a laugh. He grabbed Conor around the waist and squeezed the breath out of him, gripped with his powerful, painful hands until Conor squeaked.

“I take it back, I take it back, flesh-eater!” 

“Nah.” Scott released him. “But I could murder a bagel right now.” His stomach was unsettled, and he wanted _bread_ to soak up whatever was in there. 

Conor straightened his shirt and licked his lips. “Bagels with meat on them?”

“Sure, buddy.”

“Do you need to wrap those, first?” He pointed at Scott’s hands, where the skin around his knuckles had stopped bleeding. 

Scott shook his head. “Let the air get to them, I think.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr!](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/)


End file.
